How To Create A TV Commercial On A Tight Budget
The thought of creating a TV commercial can be daunting, especially when you're working with a tight budget. With a little ingenuity and resourcefulness, you’d be surprised at what you can create. We recently worked with the Mississippi River Flavor Company to create a 30-second spot for their brand of original spice blends. We followed these three general rules to help guide us from concept to completion:
Start with resources that are available to you.
Craft creative ideas based on those resources.
Don't be afraid to use people who aren't full time actors.
Start With Resources That Are Available to You
This may feel backwards, but when you are trying to create something on a budget, you should start with resources first and ideas second. A great idea doesn’t amount to much if there’s no practical way to execute it. Initially, the client had proposed a concept that involved a grocery store and a lot of extras. It was a great idea, but cost prohibitive. I started to think about what locations might be available for little or no money and quickly realized that my recently renovated kitchen and deck might be a great place for a cooking related product.
Craft Your Creative Concepts Based On Those Resources
With the location set, I started to think about what kind of story we could tell in that space. Sometimes, the most intimidating thing can be a blank piece of paper so I find that having some kind of limitations and constraints can be useful. Given that the product was a spice blend, it seemed like an obvious situation would be a barbecue with friends. And then I remembered an actual barbecue I had where a friend showed up with plain chicken breasts, and I immediately gave him a hard time. Voila - there was the kernel for the commercial. Once I had the location and concept, writing the script was pretty easy.
Don’t Be Afraid To Use People Who Aren’t Full Time Actors
While it's great to have professional actors in your commercial, don't let a lack of professional talent hold you back. With all due respect to commercial actors, many of the roles aren’t that complicated. Sometimes it’s more of finding someone you know who is just like the character you envision. Since the concept was based on my personal experience, I volunteered to play the role of the homeowner. I then recruited my friend Jim to play the other speaking role. Jim has a day job but also does some voice over and on camera work. Because he is a non union actor, hiring him was very reasonable, and he knocked it out of the park!
If you are open and flexible, creating a TV commercial on a budget can be really fun and create great results. If you know a business owner who has always thought about creating a commercial but thought it was too expensive, send them our way. We’d love the creative challenge!
